Hand held rotary tools are widely used by many people including professionals, craftspeople, homeowners, and artists. These rotary tools typically include an outer housing designed to be easily held within a human hand. The housing retains an electric motor which is operable to drive a rotatable chuck of the rotary tool. An accessory may be releasably secured to the chuck thereby enabling the rotary tool to rotatably drive the accessory.
The widespread use of hand held rotary tools is a result, in part, of the wide variety of accessories that may be used with the tools. The accessories include cut-off wheels, polishing wheels, grinding wheels, sanding discs, routing bits and other cutting bits. In addition to the availability of specialized types of shaping accessories, shaping accessories may further be specifically designed for the particular type of material that is to be shaped. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,758,639 assigned to Credo Technology Corporation discloses a bit that is designed for use with drywall.
While many of the accessories used with rotary tools are available in kits, the provision of every available accessory for a particular rotary tool is prohibitively expensive. Moreover, those accessories which are used more frequently by a particular consumer will need to be replaced due either to breakage or wear, while the accessories that are rarely if ever used need not be replaced. Thus, accessories are typically provided individually, even if the accessory is also provided within a kit. Thus, packaging for individual accessories is needed.
Additionally, while kits are frequently provided within a storage kit that the consumer may use, the individual accessories are frequently provided in simple packaging which is not intended to function as a permanent storage device. Thus, a consumer may simply keep the accessories in a drawer or storage bin with other accessories. For accessories which include cutting tips or blades, such storage can lead to dulling or even chipping of the cutting tip or blade. Accordingly, various accessory holders have been developed which provide for storage of the accessory by the consumer.
Individual accessory holders suffer from various limitations. For example, some of the accessory holders are opaque. Thus, the consumer cannot see the actual accessory. Accordingly, the consumer cannot tell by looking at the accessory holder whether or not the accessory is within the holder. Additionally, such accessory holders frequently use paper labels to identify the particular accessory. These labels can easily be damaged or worn such that the consumer is not able to read the label.
The storage problem for a consumer is further compounded by the fact that certain accessories require other devices to maintain or modify the accessory. One such accessory is a router bit. A router bit may include an accessory tool in the form of a bearing which is used to offset the working portion of the router bit from the work piece. Such router bits may use a variety of bearings to provide a variety of offsets which a consumer can interchange using an Allen wrench to remove one bearing and to mount another bearing. Additionally, the bearings tend to become unusable, necessitating replacement of the bearing in order to properly use the router bit. Thus, a single accessory bit may result in a need to store a number of additional accessory tools. Because of the size of the accessory tools, such as the bearings and the Allen wrench, these accessory tools are easily lost or misplaced.
In addition to a storage function, the packaging of an accessory may provide a display function. The manner in which various accessories are displayed, however, can result in consumer confusion. For example, the consumer may not be overly familiar with the capabilities of the particular accessory. Thus, while the consumer may realize that a router bit is needed for a particular project, the consumer may have difficulty recognizing the particular router bit that is needed since the bit is in essence a negative of the shape that is generated.
Additionally, packaging is usually provided that displays an accessory in a manner that is optimized for a retail setting. For example, retailers generally provide a large variety of accessories for a variety of rotary tools. Thus, since displaying the accessories on a shelf requires a substantial amount of space for a single item, some retailers prefer to display the accessories in a holder which can be hung from a rack. The consumer, however, rarely has a rack system to use when storing the accessory. Thus, the accessory holder is not easily incorporated into the consumer's storage scheme.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an accessory holder which allows the accessory to be displayed while hanging on a rack while further allowing storage of the accessory in an upright position wherein the accessory could be visually identified. It is further desired that the accessory holder provides for storage of components and tools used with the accessory.